Questions That Must Be Answered
When it comes to the issue of Calvinism, what most people are familiar with, and what Calvinists spend much time answering, is objections or questions against Calvinism. However, I thought of questions that I believe must be answered by those who reject Reformed theology. If you are not Reformed, please look these questions over carefully. I hope these questions might even help put things in perspective as you see what the implications are if one denies the Reformed position. May God bless you as you continue to study these difficult issues:
1. Why do you believe in Christ, while your unbelieving neighbor doesn’t?
2. What does it mean, from an non-Reformed position, that God is sovereign, and can that position be reconciled with the overall teaching of Scripture?
3. Can God fail?
4. Does God fail?
5. If there is a person God has determined to save, but they have the power to thwart His plan to save them, doesn’t that mean that God isn’t sovereign, omnipotent, or omniscient?
6. Has God ordained all things that come to pass? If not, then how is that things come to pass, and how can it be said that God is sovereign over those things?
7. Is God obligated to show mercy to any person? If so, then how it can undeserved? Wouldn't salvation then be based on the merit of the individual?
8. Was salvation actually accomplished or potentially provided for on the cross? If salvation were merely potentially provided for, then:
a. Why would Jesus have had to die if it only provided the possibility of salvation without actually saving people? In other words, if it was just belief in God or in Jesus that would save a person, then why would Jesus have to die, especially since people already believed in God prior to the coming of Jesus, and even believed in Jesus during His ministry?
b. What would happen if no one ever "accepted" Jesus? Do you really think it is possible that Jesus could have died in vain?
c. How many people do you think would eventually be saved?
9. If Christ really died a substitutionary death on the cross, whereby He died in the place of specific individuals, and actually propitiated and expiated that person’s sins, how could it be possible for God to send that person to hell for the very sins that Christ already was punished for on his behalf? NOTE: Many respond by saying because those people did not believe. But isn’t unbelief a sin? And if God did not pay for their sin of unbelief, then how is it that Christ paid the price for all of our sins? Also, this is related to question 8a, above. In terms of belief, the Calvinist maintains the death of Christ actually purchased the faith of the person.
10. How
can salvation be possible to those who, from the perspective of God's
omniscience, are certain to be lost?
11. Between the Reformed and non-Reformed view, which view of salvation actually accomplishes and secures the salvation of more people, and as such is much more honoring to God?
12.
If God has chosen to save a person, died for a person, effectually
called/regenerated that person, and gave that person the gifts of faith and
repentance, is it conceivable that that person could perish (i.e., lose his
salvation)? Does God do this for
every single individual who ever has or ever will live?
13. If the only thing God did was to merely give every single person a chance/opportunity to be saved, how many people would actually be saved?
14. On what basis did God choose you for salvation?
15. How is it that God knows the future? Does He know the future because He has decreed and determined what the future will be, or does He know it because He can see the future that somehow happens without His direct involvement in determining the future?